The first thing that comes to mind is that one of the devices you're accessing your email account with is set to downloaded the mail, thereby removing it from the server.

A reader writes: Does it really matter which email provider you use to apply for jobs? I ask because I was reading a thread on Reddit recently, and the people there said anything other than Gmail makes a candidate look computer illiterate and/or less intelligent. Essentially, according to this thread, AOL is for old people, dumb people, or people who can’t use a computer; Yahoo and Hotmail are slightly better, but not much; and Gmail is the provider of choice for intelligent candidates who are computer savvy. Recruiters there said they downgrade candidates who use anything other than gmail or an address with a personal domain.

Is this true? No reasonable employer is going to reject you because of your email address’s domain, but it does contribute to an overall impression of you.

Using an AOL address does make you look way behind the times when it comes to technology. Yahoo and Hotmail also have a dated feel to them, but not nearly to the same extent. (AOL is particularly bad, because AOL originally marketed itself as a safe way for non-web-savvy users to experience the big bad web, in their own safe little AOL community.) It’s not going to take you out of the running, but there absolutely are stereotypes about those email addresses, and you should at least be aware that you might get branded with them. • Brooke +1 I totally look at the part prior to the @ rather than after. I don’t think it matters where you get your email.

I think it says SO MUCH about a person when they CREATE something like “bigghettobooty69”. And yes, I have seen some very tacky email addresses like this come through and most of the time, I don’t even bother. If they can’t even take the time to make a second email address that has a little professionalism and class to it, they probably are not going to put forth the effort to appear as such at their job.

In my few years of hiring, not once have I ever checked the website that they receive their email. • Elise No, nothing any more common than any other email address I’ve used and it’s happened with more than one gmail account I’ve opened and not with any of the others (I tend to keep several accounts for different things). When you get spam after you use the email to sign up for any other site online, it’s not so odd. But the gmail spam starts day one before I’ve given it out. I’m wondering if it has to do with how Google tracks everything you access thru Google searches if you are signed into your account. When you are signed into a Google account and using a Google search that takes you to a website with Google ads all overseems things might be a little bit too interconnected.

• KC For what it’s worth, you can find relatively inexpensive web hosting and if you can get your name as a domain name, you can have a professional email address to use for networking or job hunting. I think it’s worth the investment (domain is $10/year, hosting for me is about $90/year, but I have many domains hosted there). You can connect the email account to Gmail really easily, so you don’t need to log in somewhere else to have it. I have as an email address. Maybe it’s a personal bias as someone who was growing up during the Internet Age, but I definitely make pre-judgments about AOL email addresses.

You get extra points taken off for ANY email address that isn’t. It takes minutes to create a Gmail account with a professional version of your name. • Juni Oldest Millennials are in their early 30’s, like me. I remember when AOL started, I used floppy drives, and I watched the internet turn from Usenet and BBS into, well, the internet. Any Millennial who sees a floppy drive in a computer is going to know that you put media of some sort in there, it’s not a hard jump to make when you’re used to plug-in media. But I absolutely judge people with an AOL email, because I am familiar with it (used it as a kid) and know that those who use AOL for primary internet browsing are using a curated version of the internet in a bubble and thus are unlikely to have strong internet research skills and less likely to self-solve.

Yup, that’s totally a stereotype. But when I’m hiring, the email address is absolutely something I look at and take into consideration, along with the meat of the resume. If I were hiring for a secretary, I wouldn’t care what your email address was.

But if I’m hiring a researcher, grant writer, fundraiser, etc., I need someone who is, if not a digital native, someone who has kept up with the times. • AnotherAlison I have a hard time with your assumption. I have a yahoo email. Do you think I go to the yahoo portal every time I go online?

I am not an IT person, but I do a huge amount of research and data analysis. I have an engineering degree and current experience with all kinds of software. While I can agree I might as well use my gmail address instead and represent that I *am* current, I think it’s weird to jump to conclusions about someone’s skills from their email address.

Now, let’s say you’re hiring for some general office admin position, and my 60-year old aunt applies with a resume lacking in any computer or office experience, and an aol address, yeah, I can agree you need to fill in the blanks about her experience from the info you have and that shows that she is dated in her computer use. But when you have other info, why let an email address alone color your opinion?

• Juni Well, no, I’d imagine that you wouldn’t like what I mentioned. I don’t use the email address to be my entire criteria for weeding out resumes, but combined with the rest of the resume, it tends to correlate with what’s on the resume. By saying that your 60-year-old aunt has an AOL account and applies for jobs without computing experience I don’t need to fill in any blanks there. No blanks to fill.

The email address on her resume just reinforces what her resume says about her. Your having a yahoo account may or may not correlate with what I see on your resume, but it wouldn’t necessarily knock you out of the running. To Millennials, AOL is a joke. It is like walking to school barefoot in the snow. When I have to sift through 60+ resumes for a prospect researcher position, it is a shortcut for me to just cut everyone with an AOL address, because in my experience, that field has correlated 100% with people who may be fine writers but have lower ability towards research tools, self-solving, and picking up new technology. That’s your problem, but it’s not mine.

I’m not the only Millennial hiring manager who skips right over people if something in their resume conveys that he or she is not a “native speaker” of technology. It’s not weird at all to draw conclusions about someone’s skills based on their email address. It’s certainly not any weirder than drawing conclusions based on anything else in their resume, how they format their resume, or anything else they are using as a marketing tool to market themselves. I’m just not buying what they’re selling, and more and more Millennials who think this way are rising to the hiring manager level every year. • AnotherAlison FWIW, I’m a millenial by some definitions.

I sometimes squeak under the first year. AOL is a joke? Yeah, I mean honestly, I didn’t really know that people were using it. As for my own use of yahoo, while I defend it here, I go 50/50 IRL.

It’s on my linkedin, so if someone contacts me through there (which I’d think would indicate some degree of tech savviness), I don’t confuse them by switching to another email address that is identical, excluding the domain. I’m not a job seeker, but I get headhunter contacts regularly. If someone contacts me & I send my info, I haven’t NOT gotten an interview. I’ve managed my own career well enough that I don’t have to send my resume to nameless hiring managers and recruiters who will cut me based on my email domain. • BW Or it could be that person has been online since the beginning of time and just never changed their email address, like some people like to keep the same phone # when they move or switch providers, because it’s just less hassle. IMO judging a person based on their email provider isn’t any different than judging them based on their name or address.

Heck, change it up sometimes and weed resumes based on area code. With the advent of portability, mobile phones, and VOIP, and the death of 7 digit dialing, what kind of old bumbling fogey still has one of those old useless local area codes, especially the ones that existed before overlays that have a 1 or a 0 in the middle. Get with the times already! • Jen in RO I didn’t think my email address was common (it’s an alternate spelling of Jenny), but I am getting a lour of email for more than one Jennifer. Stuff like info about kids’ kindergarten, a request for help with Immigration, info for a wedding and weirdest of all, they sign up for websites with my email and their card details! I could have ordered myself a Nook with as woman’s money!

As it stands, I reset the passwords to their accounts and removed their credit cards from the billing details. (There were two different names so I guess there’s at least 2 women who think my email is theirs.). • Kay I have my first initial, my middle initial, and my lastname at gmail, so if my name were Anne B Ears, the email address would be abears. (Name completely fictional.) There is a woman out there whose name is, in this analogy, Anne Bears, and I know when she got married (wedding registry e-mails), that she is expecting (Babies-R-Us registry e-mails), and all the details of her mother’s vacation photos and health because these people WILL NOT STOP sending e-mail to my address (she is actually a teacher and her actual e-mail is “abears” one of those.k12.state.us accounts). For the first year I tried writing back to the personal ones with “You’ve got the wrong person, please stop contacting me” but that was three years ago and after that I started marking them all as spam. People really need to be more careful what they type where.

• Meg Murry I’ll admit to having gotten my email addresses mixed up, because my gmail account is meg.middleinitial.murry @ gmail, while my work email is meg.murry @ company without the middle initial, so its really easy for me to mistype it and I always have to double check that its correct. I’ve sent meg.murry @ gmail an apology for getting mixups, and let her know that if she ever gets email from people with [very unique lastname A] or [another very unique lastname B] its my parents and family and I’m sorry. Yes, absolutely. My ISP e-mail is, but when I signed up for Gmail someone already had taken it. So I tried it without the period, no dice, my full first name, nope, and finally had to start bringing in my middle initials.

By the time I found an unoccupied version of my name I had brought in both my middle initials so it’s. (A Big Damn Bug, at your service!) Because I don’t enter that e-mail in many forms I always worry that I’ve got the wrong iteration of my name, and have to go sign into Gmail to double-check it out of worry that I’m signing a stranger up for all the egregiously nasty mailing lists I like to peruse at work. • Josh S FYI — GMail ignores dots in the local portion of the address, so A.Bug (at) gmail is handled/delivered to the exact same person/address as ABug (at) gmail. You can also add ‘Address Tags’ to GMail addresses. So if you typically wanted to use ABug (at) gmail, but wanted to put a different email on the AAM blog for the sake of avoiding spam, you could do ABug+AAM (at) gmail, and it would be delivered to you. It’s a good way to find out who is selling your email or using it for spam or has bad security on their customer/user database, and it makes it easier to filter those out. If, somehow, Alison decided to start sending spam (NEVER!), you could automatically send all email sent to ABug+AAM (at) gmail direct to the trash bin without ever hitting your inbox.

GMail has so many useful tools! My usual preference is some variant of firstnamelastname, with or without a middle initial, but Gmail already had users with those variants, so I ended up as lastnamefirstnamemiddleinitial@gmail, and I always have to stop and think about whether it’s correct or not. (I have a gmail account for generic professional stuff, a domain email for things related specifically to my freelance business (like my WePay account), an email through my service provider for personal stuff, and a Yahoo! Account for things on the internet that don’t fall into one of the above categories, or when I want to stay relatively anonymous. Yes, I am a bit of an email slut.

Don’t get me started on all the social media platforms I have profiles on). • Josh S There *are* those of us who are early adopters of new technology and are always looking for (and signing up for) new and clever services. I’m one of them. GMail was introduced to the public in April 2004; I started using it in June 2004.

Google+ was introduced June 28, 2011. I had an invite on June 29. (Both of those thanks to a close friend who works for Google.) Facebook launched in Feb 2004 to a small community, and to the general public in Sept 2006. They introduced personal URLs in late 2010. I was signed up for FB in early 2006, and had a personalized URL the day it was introduced. The point is, as an early adopter, I generally have my pick (or multiple picks) for user names and/or email addresses. I don’t choose to use Josh @ gmail (so NO, I did *not* apply for your company!) just because the overly simple email addresses tend to get spammed more than the more specific one that I use.

But I certainly could have chosen it for many sites/email domains if I had desired. • Piper I do this, too.

There are also sites you can go to and find all of the various social media platforms out there and then go and claim your unique user name on all of them (KnowEm, for example). Fortunately for me, I’m the only person with my name in the entire country (yep, for real), so I’ve been able to claim everything pretty easily, whether I’m an early adopter or not (which, typically, I am).

I also dominate the first 20 or so pages of Google if someone searches for me, partially because I have a decent web presence and partially because my name is unique. • ThatHRGirl It’s not that I “doubt your honesty”, but I will ask if it’s an accurate address, because if you (general you) just typed in a fake address, it significantly impacts the hiring process because the system communicates with that email and requires log-on authentication, etc. If you say “Yep, that’s correct!” I’ll say “great!” and we’ll continue on, but 99/100 times I’ve asked that question, people have told me they just made something up because they don’t have email, can’t remember their email, or didn’t think it’d be important. Just a little perspective! • I work in email marketing.

There are definitely stats that indicate (in general, of course) that people using AOL/Hotmail/Yahoo may not be as technically savvy as people using Gmail based on web purchasing activity/email interactions. Gmail is more advanced than the other programs in terms of organizational capabilities (and is awesome!). Using a newer program like Gmail over say, AOL, also gives the impression that you’re more open/able to learn and adapt to new technologies. But honestly – if you’re on Reddit, you’re probably more technically savvy than the average person.

Why hide it behind an outdated email address? It also varies by industries. If I were interviewing an email marketer who had an AOL email address, I would DEFINITELY ask about it in the interview. (I wouldn’t necessarily reject someone who is otherwise qualified over it, but I’d want to know why). Lots of other industries probably won’t care. Here’s a fun Oatmeal chart that seems fairly accurate.

• Josh S Why hide it behind an outdated email address domain? Because when I sign up for most sites, I use my AOL address that I’ve had since 1993 (??

Sometime before I was a teenager anyway, not sure the actual yearbut it ran on Windows 3.1, so around that timeframe). That way, if/when those sites send unwanted emails/semi-spam/spam, I don’t have to deal with them in my ‘real’ inbox. I just check through the AOL box, oh, once a week or so and delete all but the 3 or 4 emails that are actually halfway worth looking. The other 300+ get unceremonially deleted. And that’s what AOL is good for. • AnotherAlison Exactly. I don’t have my aol address anymore.

(Actually, it would be fun to see if pellinore3 at aol.com can be retrieved. I was a dork in hs, for sure.) But, I use my yahoo address. My linkedin is associated with my yahoo, because I have certain types of junk on yahoo, and other types of junk on my gmail. My email for important stuff goes to my work.com address. It’s a PITA to dump an email address you’ve had for 10+ years. I have doctor’s offices, kid’s schools, old contacts, etc.

Who only have that one & I’m not sure who. It’s easier for me to keep all my email addresses than to shift to gmail-only to be “cool.”. • Oh, I know it’s hard to switch. I just got married and changed my last name, and I decided to wipe the slate clean with a new (also gmail) address, even though I had been using my old one since 2004 or 2005 (whenever Gmail started).

It’s taken forever to switch things over, but it’s given me a chance to clean everything up and only sign up for retail emails that I actually want. And FWIW it’s worth – Gmail is amazing and way more powerful than the other platforms.

We’re not all recommending it because it’s trendy or cool – we’re recommending it because it’s better. Josh – A lot of people use their old email addresses as a throwaway for junk email.

And that’s fine. But wouldn’t it make more sense to just have one gmail account with filtered labels for your other stuff (and I know you know how to do that!). • Chinook I have to agree withyou on that. I have a gmail account that I opened 3 years ago and a yahoo account from 9 years ago. Also, I don’t like how gmail is set up despite trying really hard to like it. It just doesn’t allow me to organize it how my brain likes things organized. I am not a luddite but I do like my tools to work with how I think instead of having to change how I think to suit the tools.

Also, yahoo address has my complete name and the gmail has a number added to it, so I prefer to use my yahoo address for professional reasons. I do question, though, people who change their email addresses every few years for the next “bright shiny” domain. I am gathering they don’t move much or change phone numbers often?

My email address is the only contact info that hasn’t changed over the last 9 years and it would take them shutting the site down for me to stop using it. • AnotherAlison The other reason I keep using my ancient email is because I can always remember my email address to retrieve access to a particular website. I had an Intuit account once that was associated with another email (personal domain), and I screwed up and shut-down that email before changing the contact email on Intuit. What a pain to fix!

I also had to use my iTunes user name for the first time in, oh, 3 years the other day & it was nice to know I could just retrieve it through my trusty yahoo email. • Oxford Comma I have 3 email accounts (work, personal, internet purchases/registrations). Lord knows I could have more because it seems like most services offer them. I have a very hard time keeping up with those 3. It’s not because I’m a luddite. It’s not because I am behind the times. It’s because I have so much to keep track of and the email (and work) never stops coming.

When I’ve had to change that email addy for whatever reason it’s invariably resulted in me losing touch with people and opportunities. Unless an applicant has some remarkably tacky or unprofessional sounding email name, I do not care what domain they use. Most of the resumes/cvs we get list people’s technical expertise. That to me is far more indicative of someone’s technological abilities than whether they have a gmail or an aol account. • Josh S I have multiple linked Gmail accounts (5, including 3 Google Labs personalized domainsin before they started charging!) and use LOTS of filters & labels. Still, I sign up for stuff, or buy things through esty or Woot!

Or other online marketplaces, or sign up for freebies from CPG companies like Kraft or P&G, or use multiple email addresses/accounts to score multiple Groupons for great deals that I’ll use, or have to sign up at annoying sites for my market research stuff, and I use my AOL address because I *know* that all of those things will result in receiving a lot of marketing emails that I don’t care about and/or flat out spam. And sure, I could build filters for each of those scenarios, but it’s easier to just ‘filter’ by sending the crap to an email I don’t care about in the first place. • JessA I have had the same personal email address from mindspring / springmail since 2001. Remember several years ago when cell phone users were finally able to take their cell phone number with them when they went to a new provider and what a big deal it was that they could keep the same number forever? That’s why I have kept the same email address. Granted, I do have a couple gmail accounts for different things, but I have been using my springmail address for job hunting.

I guess I will update my resume and start using my gmail address for all things job related. My college gives alumni a unique forwarding address upon graduation, so you can use it as a permanent address. It’s pretty nice; I use it for things where I expect to be in long-term contact (like financial services) and set it to pass along messages to whatever mail address I’m using currently.

I’d probably use my gmail address in a job search setting, though; part of the value of the forwarding address is that it’s currently spam free, due to my being very careful about whom I share it with. • Lora I know loads of people who have the @alumni.fancypantsU.edu address because otherwise their MIT/Harvard/Yale degree is on, like, page 3 of their CV where you might not notice it, but having an elite degree is often a prerequisite in some organizations. Coming from TinyPrivateU and HalfDecentU for grad school, I have a different opinion, but it’s definitely a thing in certain companies–they won’t hire Nobel Laureates who don’t have the magical elite degree. *shrugs* Their loss, but I can see why my colleagues do it. • Jessa Exactly. I have the same number I’ve had for nearly 15 years on my cell phone.

Everyone of any importance at all (be it family, business acquaintances, whatever,) has that number. I have relatives all over the world who are of an age that “remember a new number,” is out of their mental abilities. I finally got a gmail account because I needed one for my android tablet. I don’t use it for anything. I’ve also got a couple of AOL addresses, because I still use AIM to talk to certain friends.

This does not mean I have no idea of the current state of computers or modern technology. I’ve been working with computers since punch cards. I learnt to deal with cards before I learnt to write properly. The only reason I wouldn’t use my AOL address for a job app is because it’s NOT a “myname@” kind of thing. On the other hand the myname@cableco is perfectly useful for my resume. • Sandy I had a non-professional email address when I was looking for work and I wanted to get a more professional sounding email, but I also didn’t want to change all of my email addresses for everything else, so I just created a new email address (first initial last name @ gmail.com) and then had it auto forward all the email from that new address to my less professional one (ie: ).

So I still received all the email from the new professional address, but I didn’t have to change anything or check two email accounts. • Kelly O I’m certainly not the IT person in the family, but I do notice a lot “phishing” in general from Gmail than from either Yahoo or Hotmail (my two alternate emails.) Granted, I do not use Yahoo for anything except junky stuff anymore, and I go in every few months and dump it out. I have the Hotmail/Outlook account because a former employer used MSN messenger, and I grabbed a variation on my name. I check it sometimes too, but again, it’s mainly just for things I don’t necessarily want in my main email account. • Rana My website and primary emails are both through a service that was originally only dial-up based. I now access both through a regular internet connection, but in theory I could still use dialup to get to them, should I lose that connection. They provide really great service – drop them a ticket with a problem and they call you back within half an hour to fix it – and are fairly cheap, so I continue to use them as email and webpage host, even though I pay Comcast for general internet access.

• Man, I think that this one of the most stupid things to judge someone on. Who their email is with says nothing about them for example none of those above stereotypes are true with me. I am not old (28), I know how to use technology (I update my own blog, website, etc), and for the less intelligent part I did graduate with honors from my college I still use my aol email and I also use it when I apply for jobs.

I have had my email since I was in elementary school and it was my first email too. Everyone knows my email address which is why I keep it and I do not want to keep making new emails addresses to keep up with what ever is coolest thing to have right now My email address has a professional name to it too (which is funny since I made it in elementary school) so I plan on keeping it. • Post author The thing is, though, that just like clothes, email addresses brand you to a certain extent. They carry certain connotations.

And you might think that it’s ridiculous that an email domain does that, but it does. It’s a bit like saying “I’m not going to buy a new suit because I’ve had this one for years and it still fits, so screw you if you judge me for it” while plenty of people are judging you for wearing a bizarrely outdated suit with shoulder pads and a little 80s-style bow tie. It’s just a reality of how you’re perceived. You can care or not care, but it’s a part of your image.

• AnotherAlison What’s weird to me is at most places you’re going to get a corporate email address. (I suppose there are the hipster startups that have everyone use gmail or whatever.) I assume most personal accounts are kind of afterthoughts, used for junk and getting emails from your grandma, dentist, and the occassional headhunter. Where 10 years ago I communicated with friends via email, now it’s mostly facebook or twitter. Any personal email address I have is kind of secondary & just not a big part of my daily communications. It’s not worth the hassle to update something that isn’t a huge part of how I present myself to the world.

To me, it’s not like wearing a suit with shoulder pads, it’s like wearing a pair of 1980s high cut bikini underwear. Dated, yes, but not really important to the outside world. • K I think there’s a difference between judging someone for not keeping up with what’s coolest and worrying that they don’t know about new innovations in the field. If you’re applying for a job that is going to require that you be up on technology (which a lot of jobs don’t), then there’s something to be said for showing you’re not using what a lot of people consider to be outdated tech in your personal life either, at least not when upgrading is free. In really tech oriented jobs, this might even be a conscious judgment; in ones where it’s important but not a central focus, it might be a subconscious impression that will affect the interviewer. • Do we actually know that AOL email is “outdated tech”? What does that even mean?

Mail doesn’t get sent reliably? It doesn’t get received? And the “upgrading is free” concept is the reason so much technology is sucky from a user perspective.

It might be free in terms of paying cash, but it’s not free of other things (Google tracking your history when logged-in, needing to tell people you’ve changed your email address are two costs that come to mind off the top of my head. There are probably others). • TL I use a (professional-sounding) Yahoo e-mail address for job hunting, partly because it’s one I’ve had for a while, and also because I’m concerned about privacy issues with Gmail. Not because Yahoo is so much better on that front, but because I don’t want ALL my web activity (search history, maps, e-mail, etc.) in one place, so to speak. Looking over these comments, it seems that people are all over the map when it comes to making judgments based on e-mail domains, so I’m not greatly concerned.

Honestly, if someone can look at my resume and cover letter, which show tech-savvy skills and achievements, and dismiss me simply because I have a Yahoo account, perhaps I’m better off not working for them; what other off-base assumptions would they make about me, and what opportunities might I miss due to their assumptions, if they have such a propensity for making snap judgments against the majority of the evidence at hand? • KayDay I agree that it would be exceedingly stupid for an employer to reject you or take your email domain into account when making a decision, but it does impact someone’s first impression. If I get applications from someone who graduated in 1990 and was working in the mid-90s when AOL was cool, I’m probably not going to judge them for still using it (unless it’s for a social media or web marketing position). But if I got an email from someone who graduated college in 2009 with an AOL account, that’s going to be a little weird. Usually, the only emails I get from hotmail are spam, so if I get an email from a hotmail account I’m scared to open the attachments, and if the email is terribly written (“Sirs – the resume requested is attached hearwith.”) I’ll probably assume you are a spammer.

• AnotherAlison I’ve done it all. My name is extremely common – 3 of us at my GYM. My first name shortens to Ali or Al – also common when combined with my last name. My last name doesn’t shorten well, professionally. I defaulted to firstmiddlelast at whatever.com for all my accounts – fb, twitter, etc. Because that allowed me to use a consistent handle that is always available.

Even myname### is often taken, as is nameinitiallastname, and I end up with something ridiculous like 45967 tacked on the end. My only complaint is my handle is 15 letters long.

That’s it for my common name rant for the day! • Kay In GMail, periods don’t count. (Underscores do.) So john.smith at gmail and johnsmith at gmail are the same account, as are john.q.smith and johnqsmith. (I write mine on my resume as initials.lastname because it’s more readable, but I just use initialslastname when I sign up for sites or enter it into forms because it’s easier.

Both get to me perfectly well.) That makes it easier for account owners but harder to come up with an e-mail address if you’re the 900th John Smith to try to get one. • Sissa I’ve had my Gmail account hacked for the same (stupid) reason as a lot of those people using Yahoo or Hotmail: using the same username and password combination on multiple websites. That is the most common reason why you get your account hacked, but as per stereotype, Gmail users KNOW that the more you use the same password between different services, the more likely it is to get picked up by a keylogger and grabbed. And then there are security issues and password leaks, but those are usually widely announced and the service providers either recommend or force their users to change their passwords, in which case the situation is (usually) under control much faster.

What do we learn from this? Change your password once every 2 or 3 months. It’ll keep you safer.:).

• dude00 I’ve had every email provider under the sun at one point, but used Yahoo as my primary provider for about 10 years. I even purchased their $20/yr premium membership to ax the ads and provide additional services. All until last year, Yahoo stopped sending emails out if I attached anything to them. ALL my applications send via email never were sent, and I had NO idea!

It wasn’t until a friend requested I send them my resume so they could forward it for me to their company that I realized this. I joined Gmail and haven’t looked back since (although I did set up a forward service so that I didn’t have to chance my email for websites that I’ve set it up with years ago.). I got an outlook.com address with my real name as soon as I could. I missed doing that with gmail which was a little annoying (my name is not super common, but not rare). For job-related stuff I use where realname is my own full name. I have to mention that while an AOL address might make someone appear older, I have know some very very accomplished people (yes, older – 40 to 5os) with AOL addresses.

They’ve had an email address for a long time, other people know that at their address, so they see no need to change. I respect that. I know a person worth at least $200 million who still uses a mindspring address. Another person who played in a huge rock band who has used AOL forever.

• Chriama This must be a cultural thing. Here in Canada I find that a lot of people use their ISP’s domain, like Shaw or Videotron. Interview attire and the actual email username show an understanding of social norms and standards of professionalism, so I guess that in the right context you could make the same argument for email domain.

Overall, though, I think a conscious bias for something like that in any field indicates a poor hiring manager. On the principle of the thing I want to tell job seekers not to put up with this bs because anyone who “docks points” for that and disregards the actual contents of your cover letter & CV is not someone you want to work for. On the other hand, I acknowledge that no one wants to risk losing out on an interview for something so easy to do, and given the fact that a free domain like Gmail seems to be ranked “acceptable”, it isn’t unnecessarily marginalizing certain groups. On the (other) other hand, I would actively disagree with anyone who advises people to just buy a web domain. Unless you’re in a field where that is expected (in which case there had better be an actual site at that address!), such an expectation does impact groups like people with low incomes, and is inappropriate for hiring managers who truly want the best candidate. • Lulula However, in this case, it is a pragmatic filter – the one time I chose to do a crazy commute because I thought the job might be worth it and hey, so many other people spend half the day commuting, it became a huge issue and we ended up parting ways after only a few months.

The owner/manager mentioned that her partner warned her in the beginning that my location could be problematic, but she chose to ignore that at the time. If she hadn’t, she might have ended up with a longer term/better hire (or not: she was pretty loopy in a number of other ways!). Point being, it’s a legitimate concern, even if a candidate enjoys spending 4 hours a day on the road. Now if the HR person/hiring manager has a bias against a particular part of town that is not due to logistics you may not want to work for them anyway, and honestly is like wondering if you have the same name as their much-hated ex-boyfriend. Can’t address ALL potential personal issues, just have to do your best with what you can control. Email addy’s are obviously not the same in terms of having a direct impact on your job performance, but do become part of your overall “brand” (intentional or not).

Bollywood Actress Mobile Themes Download here. Myself, I wouldn’t worry much about the provider unless there were technical issues, as long as the first part isn’t ridiculous. Even if you are in a techy profession, you could end up dealing with someone who thinks Google is the Evil Empire and all gmail users are sheep who aren’t smart enough to realize the downsides of that service (FWIW I did set up a Gmail acct for my “professional” email for various reasons, not least of which is that it just sounded more professional than the somewhat goofily-named services available at the time.).

• Lynn I’m surprised at the posts arguing that your email domain “shouldn’t” count against you, because you’re smart and hardworking and up-to-date, and an AOL address doesn’t change that. Fair or unfair, everything about you that is visible contributes to an overall impression, and email is easy to change (or augment; you’re allowed to have more than one.) Like wearing a nose ring or a gigantic belt buckle and cowboy hat, it makes a certain statement which may not be the one you want to make when job-seeking.

For a lot of people, certain email domains are associated with spam, scammers, and Fwd:fwd:fwd:fwd:fwd:fwd:fwd:fwd:fwd:fwd:fwd: hoaxes from great-aunts. Maybe that’s not fair, but there is that perception, based on getting a lot of emails from those domains in those categories. It’s just human nature to make associations over time based on experience. Why risk having that taint about you when it’s so easy to fix? • -X- My impression of AOL is either the person is old and clueless OR is older, has an extensive correspondence list, is very self-confident and accomplished, and doesn’t care what other people think due to that confidence.

If I has hiring, those two things, as a *gross* generalization, make the person either less desirable or more desirable, but since it’s not clear at all I’d ignore the email domain. Maybe a clearly young person choosing AOL would be strange, but if the person is over the age of 40 I’m not sure what it reflects other than that’s they’ve been online a long time. As I’ve mentioned earlier, I know very accomplished people with “old” email addresses. • Lynn I know very accomplished, sharp people with “old-fashioned” email addresses too.

No one’s saying they don’t exist. But ON AVERAGE, many people have noticed that emails from those domains tend to be MORE LIKELY to be either shady or sent by someone who is very uncomfortable with technology and not with-it in general. Neither of which is the greatest association when you’re looking for a job. I bet how much it matters varies a great deal by field and industry, which is why some of us are saying “OMG, there’s a *difference*???” and some of us are saying “OMG, you don’t see the *difference*???” I work in tech, and keeping one’s tech skills up-to-date is important, so yeah, an AOL address would have a slight unsavory whiff of “I don’t learn new computer stuff if I can possibly help it” where I work. (Unsavory to us only because constantly learning new computer stuff is basically a job requirement.) If we were hiring Outward Bound instructors or something, I can see where it wouldn’t matter at all.

• mel I just don’t understand what the big dang deal is. I’m using the same hotmail account I got in 2002. Yeah, it takes five minutes to switch over to gmail, but I specifically don’t want to have a gmail address.

I’ve already got two gmail accounts I have to switch between constantly (thanks to youtube) so I really don’t want a third. I like to stay signed in and I like to not be complaining about silly little things like all of my gmail friends do (where are my emails disappearing to? Why are they grouped like this??). • ThursdaysGeek I have my own domain and everything comes to the one inbox. While I was job seeking, I’d make up addresses for each job site I joined:,. Now I can tell who is still sending me emails, and can keep trying to get back off their list.

But, it also confused people when I got closer to talking to real hiring managers. Plus, I can’t easily send emails from all of those addresses, so subsequent emails would come from. My ease vs their confusion: next time I’ll just use my name and hope I can figure out who sold my email address and how to turn off some of the spam. • Jill Hi, It certainly seems like this is a divided topic. I personally am wondering what the opinions are about @live.com, which is a branch of hotmail but sounds a bit more professional (i guess) than @hotmail.com.

I prefer @live.com because of the layout and ease of use over @gmail.com — I have called a couple of my recruiter friends and hiring managers and the general conscientious seems to be if you aren’t using a childish/inappropriate handle they wouldn’t think twice about hotmail/yahoo/gmail. • Judy Then you have some risks. Enrollment forms do not match your ID. You risk not being able to pick them up from an activity.

When we go to council events, if a girl has to leave early, one of our adults takes them to the main checkout area, with our permission slip that notes the names of the people who can (or sometimes can’t) pick them up, and other adults handle the checkout. Same with the schools. You have to show ID and be listed in the child’s paperwork to pick up a child for a doctor’s appointment. You have to show ID and be on their background check list to enter the school building, if you’re going past the office, except for special programs, and I’ve generally seen “Officer Friendly” in the front hall on those days. Any time you enter the school building during the school day, and 30 minutes before or after, you have to show ID. And wear a temporary ID badge (sticker) with your name, photo and where you are allowed to go, if you go further than the office.

They look at your ID, cross check to a background check list, then take your picture and print the sticker. We have 8 girls in our troop. 4 of the moms have (obviously personal) emails with what is most likely their maiden names, and the girls live with both parents.

1 set of parents are not living in the same place, so most likely divorced. 1 of the others seems to have kept their maiden name or the parents are not married, but the girl does live with both parents. • Jamie I took my maiden name back after my divorce and had that for 4 years until I remarried and took my now husband’s name. So for the vast majority of my child rearing I have not had the same last name as my kids and it’s never been an issue even once. It’s really common – and all forms that require a signature also have a “relationship” line as well. A mother by any other name still has to pay the school fees.:) When they were small I didn’t care if their little friends called me Mrs.

Kidslastname – because it didn’t matter and correcting small children from one easy to say name to something ethnic that even adults struggled with seemed pointless to me. But I would never sign with a name that wasn’t mine – Judy is right and the records need to match.

• Lanya I have a Hotmail address, which I got in college and is like my “landline” phone number – it’s my primary personal email account. I got my Gmail address much later, and use it primarily for online account logins and communications with companies or prospective employers.

But I have to sayI strongly prefer the layout and usability of Hotmail over Gmail. I just can’t get used to Gmail for whatever reason. Soif using my hotmail account makes me appear frumpy to my friends and family, I am completely OK with that! • JR I think the nit pickers are missing the point AAM is making.

It’s not a dealbreaker to have an older e-mail, but (as we all know) there are some really insane hiring managers that might see this and screen you out, or just form a (maybe untrue) bias because of it. You might argue “I would never work for a company that would deny me because of this!!!”. You probably don’t, BUT there are times when this insane hiring manager can get you into the door of an awesome company (and you’ll never have to deal with him/her again). Why is everyone calling AAM out on this?

She’s giving you legit advice you help you with your job search. If you don’t want to update your e-mail, don’t and move on. • -X- “In many areas of life, we just have to go with the flow.” We should try not to if we can afford it and the flow is wrong – otherwise we’re complicit in it. Wearing jeans to an interview is less respectful than wearing a suit, so the “flow” there has a basis in reality. So I’ll go along with that one.

I’ll add that I’m frankly surprised by AAM’s position on this one when she said (IIRC) that the type of paper used for a printed resume doesn’t matter as long as it’s not too fancy. Whereas a number of people said that very thin paper gives a subconsciously poor impression. • LoneContractor So interesting how people perceive things.

I have a gmail address and an aol address and a yahoo address— my aol address is the oldest- I’ve used it for more than 25 years. Probably before some of you were born. Family friends and business contacts all know it. I know I can port my contacts and saved mail into gmail.

But then I would have missed the email from a friend I hadn’t heard from for 10 years who only had my AOL account. All that being said- I use the gmail for professional contacts- just because of the perception surrounding AOL- or as I used to say America Online.:). I think that judging candidates by their email service provider is about as useful and professional as judging someone by their zip code or area code. Maybe we should start judging candidates by their cell phone provider or the car they drive. I’m one of those millenials who had early access to Facebook and Twitter and Gmail but unlike some I don’t see it as some mark of brilliance or talent but rather a recognition that I know people who are well connected. Which, by the way, doesn’t mean a thing when it comes to the workplace.

No one cares, and no one should. Why is it that people always forget things like opportunity cost? It’s not free if I have to spend a bunch of time changing something that already works for me and my setup. So if I’m not gaining anything by changing, then I’m wasting resources to appease people who are a poor judge of character.

What does that say about me? And as an employer who presumably has an internal email system, why do you care so much about the security of the email provider I use at home? Are you going to judge the strength of the locks on my doors, the ease of breaking into my car or how much life insurance I buy? None of the things you mention have anything to do with the vast, vast majority of jobs out there. Nothing what so ever. To be even the slightest bit concerned about them screams of a paternalism that is rather disturbing. • Post author That’s not the point.

The point is that all those things contribute to an overall impression. Just like if you showed up for an interview in a beach cover-up, it’s not about the interviewer thinking: Isn’t he cold?

Why doesn’t he buy more appropriate clothes for himself? Does he have enough money to adequately clothe himself? Isn’t he worried about being harassed on the street? They’re just going to think, “That’s odd” and take note of it.

(Do men have beach cover-ups? I don’t know.). I’m just drawing the line at a different place than you are. To me, being judged on what you do on the job site is a whole lot different than being judged by the reputation of the email host you have on your personal, never to be used at work anyway, email address.

It would be along the lines of evaluating my educational credentials by how well the football team did. I get that it’s there and folks are going to feel they way they do, I just think it’s really dumb. Also, men generally don’t wear coverups outside of competitive swimming if you’re curious.

• Anonymous “And as an employer who presumably has an internal email system, why do you care so much about the security of the email provider I use at home? Are you going to judge the strength of the locks on my doors, the ease of breaking into my car or how much life insurance I buy?” The strength of your locks doesn’t affect my locks. If we’re emailing each other, the vulnerability of your email CAN affect my email.

And I don’t see how an internal email system even plays a role when we’re talking about job searching. Presumable, most companies aren’t giving internal email accounts to applicants.

As a hiring manager, I’m contacting your personal email account. “None of the things you mention have anything to do with the vast, vast majority of jobs out there. Nothing what so ever. To be even the slightest bit concerned about them screams of a paternalism that is rather disturbing.” What things did I mention that are so disturbing?

Email security? That’s not paternalism. Self-protection, maybe. I may not care how the vulnerability of your 1998 AOL email account affects YOU, but I certainly care how it could potentially affect me and my email account. An absolute dismissal of security concerns only strengthens the generalization of computer illiteracy.

• Jamie The strength of your locks doesn’t affect my locks. If we’re emailing each other, the vulnerability of your email CAN affect my email. I would have to question any employer who is okay with people using personal email for work – which is the only way it would impact the network. I have people’s personal emails in a file – and it’s for one reason only and that’s in case we lose power completely and just for communication about the status of when we’ll be back up.

I’ve needed to use these once and it in no way compromised the network. If people need to be in constant communication via email then the employer should buy them a smartphone and pay for them to receive their work email on a regulated device or allow remote access via web based application. It’s my personal pet peeve – but I can’t see why the lines would ever need to be blurred. • Al Lo While an individual’s email domain contributes to my overall impression of them, what I really judge are businesses who use a free domain (gmail, shaw [provider-based domain], etc) instead of getting their own domain. As mentioned upthread, it’s inexpensive and easy to do, and even if you don’t set up a website, you can easily have your email look professional.

To me, it’s the difference between answering a business phone with “Yeah?” and “Good afternoon, Chocolate Teapots, Inc. Wakeen speaking.” It’s an invaluable part of that first impression, and it baffles me how many small businesses forfeit that good impression that could be accomplished so easily. • Hugo I know this has nothing to do with emails, but... What I can’t stand are companies that have “stock photo” websitesI mean, how cheap can you get?

I’d rather look at a half-decent company page with actual people, or maybe even a shot of the main office exterior, than an antiseptic, obviously “professionally made” website using clip art and models. You know the ones I’m talking about – they include such pictures as: – diverse group gathered around conference table – woman wearing headset, smiling – man in suit, arms crossed, smiling – silhouttes of employess against large glass windows – smiling boss sitting at desk speaking to smiling employees standing at desk When I see a site like this, I think to myself, “wow, if this company has such an anonymous website, I would probably feel like an anonymous employee” and makes me want to submit an application using a CompuServe or Prodigy email address. • Post author Yes! That said, when I start Chocolate Teapots Inc., I’m going to ensure that all the photos on the website look like stock photos, but are actually of our real employees.

Just because it would amuse me to make Jamie pose for these. (And the rest of you. Mike C., you will be giving a hearty handshake to Wakeen.) Then, in the midst of all these bland photos, there will be one of someone shaking their finger in a stern, schoolmarmish way at someone else who is clipping their fingernails. • Jamie Ha – I missed this! You will get the top of my head peeking out from under a bank of monitors. Perhaps a wave. And I think you of all people have the wherewithal to make sure no fingernail clippers are hired!

It’s so funny because just this weekend I was thinking I really need to get a pic for Linkedin – because it feels like I’m hiding something. Like people assume that when I walk down the street the villagers chase me with pitchforks or people try to lock me up in a bell tower which hasn’t happened yet. I just don’t know how to take a picture where the look on my face isn’t screaming “stop taking my picture – I HATE THIS!” Sorry for the digression:).

• Lulula Except usually they’re not “professionally made”, but templates that were cheaper than hiring a real designer (so I suppose “professionally made” in the sense that at least they aren’t total hack jobs, just completely devoid of all personality). Similarly to a candidate using a supposedly-outdated email provider, these sites make me wonder how with-it the company is, and whether they are intentionally non-branding themselves or just sadly clueless as to the impression they give off Either way, not appealing! Maybe not a dealbreaker, but certainly something that adds to my evaluation.

• SevenSixOne I’ll admit to thinking less of someone whose primary email address is AOL or Hotmail. Same for anyone whose primary email address is something corny like “iheartcoffee@domain.com”. Or something PG13 like “bootyquakin69@domain.com”.

Or if you and your partner/family share one email address like “ChrisAndTerry@domain.com” or “TheMartins@domain.com”. Or if your only email address is the “@companyname.com” that’s really just meant for work-related stuff. I know it’s judgmental and stupid, but it really does make a person look hopelessly out of touch. • Jamie I’m still waiting for a plausible explanation on why this is necessary. The last thing in the world I want to do is wade through my husband’s email in search of mine. I’ve heard people say that it’s because some people are communicating with both parties. That would make sense if email programs forced you to email people one at a time and retype each one.

Sometimes I send the same email to both of my sisters and I just make sure both of their names are in the TO field. They don’t need to share. • Ariancita I haven’t read the almost 300 comments yet, so this may have already been addressed, but given how many problems gmail has and given that when it comes to using gmail vs yahoo, it’s really unconscious corporate branding being swallowed hook, line, and sinker, I think judging people on email domains is absolutely ridiculous and actually tells me a lot more about the recruiters lack of web savvy who do this than the candidate’s.

I have a *number* of gmail accounts, as well as my own domain account (serviced by google), and I have experienced myself and seen with others so many horrible issues (even for the paid accounts): losing emails never to be found again, not being able to access the accounts for weeks at a time, having server issues for months on end, etc. None of these problems turned out to be user-issues. They were google side and they were widespread.

When your business interactions rely on email, it’s not on to have those kinds of ongoing problems. Mind you, these are paid accounts.

So yeah, if I see a yahoo address, I don’t judge. I figure they’re probably done with all the gmail issues they had and want to make sure an important email (from a possible job) doesn’t get lost. That said, I still use the gmail addresses and don’t apply from my yahoo account. • KayDay I have a question for everyone regarding the awful joint accounts and personal domain names (although, it’s completely hypothetical since my parents don’t plant to apply for any more jobs). Back in the AOL age, my dad, Jay Day, had his own domain (still does), comprised of his first initial and last name, and set up email addresses using that domain for all family members: Dad: jay(at)jday. Com, Mom: elle(at)jday.

Com, Me: kittensrule84(at)jday.com. They were separate email accounts, just sharing a family domain.

Would anyone find it weird if an application came from elle(at)jday. Com instead of elle.day(at)gmail? • DK222 I hire for a firm that has an audience of young intelligent computer-savvy customers, and though it may cost me a good candidate every X years, I toss out any and all hotmail and aol, and give a raised eyebrow of “hmm” at yahoo. To willingly use such inferior/outdated technology when the alternatives like gmail are free or a domain name of your own is close to it doesn’t speak well of a candidate.

My friend’s tech startup in Sacramento is the sameif not gmail or your own domain, app goes in the trash. Might not be right but why chance it? • DK222 The differences in the quality of spam filter alone makes any cosmetic upgrade not even matter.

And even if that upgrade was good (for the sake of argument let’s say it is), perception is reality. All that matters is whether the recruiter or hiring manager weeds you out based on his or her beliefs. And it’s your fellow AOL/hotmail users that doom you99% of the people who have malware and sent their whole address books spammy links have those suffixes and it’s guilt by association, warranted or not.

• Rana One thing I’m noting here: how many of you go to the individual sites to check your email? With the exception of Yahoo! And one semi-defunct campus server, I have all of my email sites linked through my desktop mail program (Mail in Mac). I think I’ve been to the actual originating sites maybe once in the last year or so, because there’s generally no need for it. It makes it very easy to check all my mail at once, in one place, so maybe this is a solution for people who don’t like the idea of having to make the rounds of several sites?

(I don’t know how well it would work on smartphones, though; my experience with those is more limited, and I don’t know what sort of mail-aggregating software is available for them. And you probably wouldn’t want to link personal accounts to a work computer.).

• Al Lo I do use Gmail’s web interface. I have a Google Apps account for my own domain, and I have all of my email accounts (nickname@gmail.com [used from 2004-2009, and all of my archives have been ported into my current account],, [which is my primary personal account], and ) except my current office-job account forwarded there, and I also have it set up so that I can reply from any of those addresses within the gmail interface (and even if it does show the primary account, it’s just, which isn’t embarrassing or inappropriate at all). I also own a bunch of other domains, so technically, I also have,, and a few others forwarded in as well, but they’re not in much use. My work email is also through Google apps, and I actually use the web interface instead of the Outlook that’s installed on my work computer.

I’ve gotten so accustomed to Gmail’s threaded conversations that it would drive me absolutely nuts to go back to a system where each reply comes in as an individual message. I so much prefer having everything threaded in a single conversation and truncating all of the quoted text under each reply. • Jamie (I don’t know how well it would work on smartphones, though; my experience with those is more limited, and I don’t know what sort of mail-aggregating software is available for them.

And you probably wouldn’t want to link personal accounts to a work computer. Canoscan 9900F Windows 7 64 Bit Drivers. ) I lead a boring life so I only have one personal email address, so my iPhone is set up where my work email is the main account, but my gmail is set up also. So when I get an email in either account it shows, but if it’s in gmail i just have to swipe over and check that screen.

You can integrate them – but I like knowing what’s coming to which account. Oh and as an aside for the discussion upthread – I’m old and I use gmail.:). • Dragonfly For those asking for empirical evidence I don’t have any studies to link to, I can only go by experience acquired via my time doing tech support. If someone wrote in using an aol domain then several things were true about them: 1) They were old, 2) they had not kept up with technology9 3) They were not tech savvy at all. I would have to carefully explain to them what a URL was.

I would have to explain where to find the address bar and what it looks like and why they want to use it. I would have to explain how to change it so they could go directly to the site they were asking to get to. I would have to explain to them what Internet Explorer was and what it looks like — “Do you see the blue lowercase “e,” with the yellow ribbon going around it? Click it.” Mind you, this isn’t even taking into account the people still using IE6! Expecting them to know about Firefox was not be dreamt of.

I do not associate AOL with people who are adaptable, or capable of troubleshooting or avoiding obvious malware traps. They did not have mad Google-fu skills, or understand the difference between a browser and a search engine. Is it fair to assume AOL email users are old? If I knew anyone concerned about age discrimination I would insist they not use that address–friends don’t let friends use AOL.

I have no idea what generation I’m in, since the answer changes according to who you ask. Slate.com says I’m generation “My So Called Life,” since it was on when I was in high school. That was also when I got my first computer, and I did use AOL dial-up, it seemed more interesting that CompuServ, Prodigy, and the other one I can’t recall. Then I noticed the difference between AOL and IE and Netscape and abandoned AOL.

I learned the difference between Alta Vista and Excite search results and abandoned one for the other. This was before I was 20. I have learned not everyone is curious and willing to explore or teach themselves things. Those people are using AOL. They aren’t dumb or stupid or worthless or any other foul calumny. They simply aren’t tech savvy, and when tech savvy matters the hiring manager would have to be egregiously irresponsible to hire someone using that domain.

This site talks all the time about how marginal cases have to be pretty damn good to get away with certain deal-breaking attributes, and an AOL domain would be one such attribute in this instance. Sure, it’s possible that someone who knows how to use Google and set up their own domain could also be using AOL. It’s also possible that a surgeon who smokes pot on the weekends can still be just as competent as one who stays sober. It’s just as likely.